


lost in the dark ((please find me))

by findingrogers



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (no death tho i promise), (of sorts..), Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Tragedy, Anxious Kozume Kenma, Car Accidents, Coma AU, Friendship, Healing, Hospitals, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks, Survivor Guilt, comatose kuroo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 10:10:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13761900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/findingrogers/pseuds/findingrogers
Summary: After a car crash leaves Kuroo in a coma, Kenma falls into bad habits and late nights, until meeting some new friends shows him that there's still something left to live for.





	lost in the dark ((please find me))

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't get this out of my head and here i am - almost a year later - working up the courage to finally post it. thank you to ari for always encouraging me to write while listening to me yell about this and even editing it for me!

_Kenma didn’t remember anything before the sounds. Not much anyway. Flashes of memories here and there. Kuroo laughing, smiling as he drove with Kenma pouting in the passenger seat. The sunlight behind Kuroo, or, at least, Kenma thinks it's sunlight. Maybe not. Maybe that was his imagination, not the memory. He remembers Kuroo’s smile, blinding as always. He remembers the pollen and the flower petals. It was spring, wasn't it? It was spring.. right? Was that part of the dream? Or was it the memory?_

_It was hazy and soft. Then sharp. Metal on metal, Kuroo's eyes wide with shock. Not sunlight, headlights. Kenma remembers that now. The crunch of metal on metal, the sound of glass shattering and falling on them. The scream of brakes. The smell of burning rubber._

_It was black after that. Dark and quiet--eerily so. There had been so much noise a moment ago._

_But then it was quiet, quiet... quiet… the dark was suffocating…_

_In the distance, sounds and lights, moving in quickly. It wasn’t dark anymore, but he still couldn't breathe. Kenma wondered if it had actually been the dark suffocating him. He pulled at his chest, looked to Kuroo for help. Kuroo… Kuroo… Kuroo wasn't moving. His eyes were closed, he looked peaceful, like he had decided to fall asleep at the most inopportune moment, as always._

_“Kuroo…” Kenma could barely get the word out before everything was dark again._  
~~~~~~~~~~~~  
The lights of the club pulsed in time with the music as Kenma sat at the bar, drink in hand. He glanced around, avoiding eye contact but watching, watching, watching. The people dancing around, the people laughing, stumbling, drinking and drinking and drinking. Kenma sipped his drink, freezing when he caught a familiar movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head slowly, sure, so sure, that he saw him.

But it couldn't be.

No, no, it couldn't be Kuroo. 

Kuroo was in the hospital. 

Kuroo wasn't awake. 

_Kuroo wasn't waking up._

Kenma reached up to pull his hair out of its loose ponytail, needing to narrow his field of vision, but stopped himself. Kuroo wasn't waking up and it was his fault (hisfaulthisfaulthisfault). 

So what if he was uncomfortable with so much to see? 

_So what?_

So _fucking what?_

Kuroo wasn't waking up. 

Kenma didn't deserve comfort. 

He took a gulp of his drink, trying to wash down the panic, trying to wash down everything. He turned his back to the crowd on the dance floor, facing the bar to flag down the bartender. Before Kenma could order, the bartender placed a new drink in front of him.

“From him,” he tilted his head toward a man across the bar, who smiled when Kenma looked his way.

Kenma took the drink, not one to refuse free alcohol these days. It wasn't something he would have ordered for himself, but it did the job. Drinking wasn't for fun. It was to dull the sharp echos - metal on metal - running through his head every day. Every moment. It was to help push him towards sleep. 

Drink to shut out the dreams. 

Drink to sleep through the night. 

Drink and drink and drink. 

Drink enough and maybe he wouldn't wake up either. 

He hoped he wouldn't wake up.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~  
_The hospital was bright and white, so different from the darkness that had surrounded him not so long ago. The ambulance ride was a blur, people speaking frantically over him, the brace around his neck, pressure on his arms where he was hooked up to the IVs._

_He turned his head to the side, searching, trying to find the one thing he needed to see._

_Kuroo. Where was Kuroo?_

_Kenma sat up with a groan, pulling free of the blankets. He had to find Kuroo. Kuroo had to be okay. He had to. He had to be okay._

~~~~~~~~~~~~

'Mornings are the worst,’ Kenma thought as he rolled over with a groan. Though, saying it was morning was still barely true. It was closer to noon than Kenma cared to admit.

He hadn't gotten home until close to 4am, still buzzing from what he thought he had seen at the club. As soon as he was home he had drank himself into a stupor, passing out not too long after. It was as close to sleep as he could get these days, with the nightmares that terrorized him only getting worse as time went on. 

It had been months since the accident. Kuroo still had not woken up. Kenma still wished he was the one hospitalized. Days were a twisted blur and time was only a fuzzy inconvenience until the sun went down. His work never suffered, it couldn't, not when he had to pay the hospital bills. And luckily he could work from home, bleary-eyed and broken as he was, without anyone asking if he was ok. He was tired of people asking if he was ok. 

Kenma shuffled to the kitchen, blanket hooded over him in a pathetic attempt to block out the sun. Coffee was his first priority. The only thing that kept him going in the day. Coffee first. The rest of the day could wait until after. Or, at least, that was what Kenma wanted to say. The plan for moment by moment was derailed when he opened the coffee tin only to see there wasn't enough for even one pot. He stared at the nearly-empty tin, thinking. Could he make it through the day without it? If he was being honest with himself, probably. But without it, his focus would be out the window, literally. He was easily distracted when tired and his work couldn't afford procrastination. He sighed as he grabbed his jacket, looking longingly into his quiet and dark apartment before closing and locking the door behind himself. At least there was a convenience store nearby. He would grab a tin of coffee and head back home to work. That's it. Coffee first, then work. 

The trip was uneventful, he got his coffee and got in line. It was uneventful, that is, until Kenma was pulled out of his thoughts when he heard a thud from up ahead. The girl that had just finished paying had dropped her bags. Kenma cringed mentally, felt his own face heating up at even the thought of becoming the center of attention, especially in such an inconvenient manner. A single orange made its way over toward him rolling, rolling, rolling until it bumped against the toe of his boot. He watched it for just a moment before the girl rushed over, her face bright red as she opened her mouth, probably to apologize if Kenma was to go by the look in her eyes. 

He bent and grabbed the rouge orange, holding it out to the small blonde with a slight smile, “Here,” his voice was quiet as he tried to avoid any more attention. 

“I'm so sorry!!” She practically yelled, tears forming in her eyes as she grabbed the orange and looked up at him. 

Kenma felt his face get even hotter as he said quietly, “It’s fine, no need to apologize.”

“But-” she started again but stopped, merely holding the orange in his direction. 

Kenma shook his head, glancing behind to see she still had a good bit of groceries to pick up. He took a step out of line, not really knowing what drove him to. He was only here for the coffee. All he needed was the coffee and then he could go home and work. But there was something in her eyes, something that shone even through her obvious panic, that made Kenma want to help her as much as he could.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope posting will give me the motivation to finally finish because i am in love with this storyline. find me on tumblr @softtst


End file.
